Shelby Means on Wyoming Sounds

By Grady Kirkpatrick

Published October 23, 2025 at 11:05 AM MDT

Shelby Means on Wyoming Sounds

Grammy award winning singer/songwriter and bass player Shelby Means from Laramie played live along with husband Joel Timmons on guitar/vocals and father Warrie Means on banjo. Wyoming Sounds listeners may be familiar with her music from the bluegrass band Della Mae, her duo with Joel as Sally & George and also her long, successful run with Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway. Shelby Means talks with Grady Kirkpatrick about her Kentucky connection and with Kelli Trujillo about her self-titled debut album with some of the top bluegrass musicians including Bryan Sutton on guitar, Ron Block on banjo and Jerry Douglas on dobro.

Welcome to Wyoming Sounds

Grady Kirkpatrick

Grady has taken a circuitous route from his hometown of Kansas City to Wyoming. Sometime after the London Bridge had fallen down, he moved to Arizona and attended Arizona State University and actually graduated from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. ("He's a Lumberjack and he's OK……..!") He began his radio career in Prescott in 1982 and eventually returned to Kansas City where he continued in radio through the summer of 1991. Public Radio and the Commonwealth of Kentucky beckoned him to the bluegrass state where he worked as Operations/Program Manager at WKMS in Murray and WNKU in Highland Heights just across the Ohio from Cincinnati.

See stories by Grady Kirkpatrick